Critical Care
A handover is not an interruption to care. It is care.
The transfer between teams is where context is either protected or lost. A note on making the most ordinary conversation in medicine more reliable.
Dr. Priyamvada Goel5 min read
A patient does not experience care in shifts. They experience one continuous story. Handover is the moment that story has to be carried accurately from one team to the next.
The strongest handovers make the active problem obvious, distinguish facts from concerns, and name what would change the plan overnight. They are short because they are structured, not because they skip detail.
For trainees, handover is a useful discipline: if you cannot explain the patient clearly in two minutes, the next step in the plan may not yet be clear to you either.